The National Border Patrol Council has confirmed that Agent Rogelio Martinez died after illegal aliens ambushed him and started beating him in the head with rocks. Another agent arrived at the scene and he too was ambushed and pelted with rocks. He is currently in the hospital being treated for his injuries.

It doesn't sound like the BP agents drew their weapons. I remember there was a policy put in place during the Obama administration that forbid BP agents to draw their weapons against rock throwers. If I remember correctly the policy was put into play after a rock throwing citizen of Mexico was shot and killed. Wonder if this stupid policy is still on the books? As this case proves, a rock should be considered a deadly weapon.

The chief of the U.S. Border Patrol instructed his agents Friday to seek cover from rock throwers along the southern border rather than shoot at them, and to take other steps to curb a spate of killings of migrants.

Border Patrol Chief Michael J. Fisher, under scrutiny from the Mexican government and U.S. civil rights groups over the killings, also ordered agents not to put themselves in the paths of moving vehicles as a pretext for shooting at them.

Fisher’s directive came as the Department of Homeland Security made public its overarching policy on the use of deadly force after a decade of secrecy. The policy is intended to guide the actions of 21,700 Border Patrol agents, who constitute one of the largest U.S. law enforcement agencies.

What difference the Border Patrol directive would make in the killings along the U.S. Southwest border – where Border Patrol agents have slain 21 people since 2010 – is not clear. In essence, the order tells agents not to put themselves in perilous circumstances where they would be forced to draw guns.

Fisher denied, however, that his agents have been too quick to fire.

“Border Patrol agents continue to show exemplary restraint and professionalism,” Fisher wrote in a four-page memorandum for the agency’s personnel.

He said rock throwers had attacked agents 1,713 times since 2010, causing them to fire their service weapons 43 times, killing 10 people. He didn’t say how many agents had suffered injuries from rocks, noting only that three agents have died in the line of duty since 2007. One of them was killed in the dark by gunfire from another agent.

Shawn Moran, the spokesman for the National Border Patrol Council, which acts as a union for Border Patrol agents, said his group was happy that the new rules didn’t restrict an agent’s ability to use force. He also said it was often difficult for Border Patrol agents to seek cover from rock throwers because supervisors sometimes posted the agents between the fence that marked the border and one several yards inside the United States.

“They often don’t have any recourse to seek cover,” he said, describing the agents as “stuck between the border fence and the secondary fence, and they have no ready means of escape.”

Fisher’s memo made no reference to the advisability of placing agents in a location where they, in Moran’s words, “have no choice but to defend themselves.”

The American Civil Liberties Union, which has been critical of Border Patrol policies, said Fisher’s memo didn’t go far enough and it called on the agency to release a study undertaken by an independent law enforcement consulting agency known as the Police Executive Research Forum. That report is thought to have been highly critical of Border Patrol practices.

“Fisher’s new guidance … is largely a restatement of existing policy, which is a shame because clearly existing policy isn’t working,” Chris Rickerd, the ACLU’s policy counsel in its Washington office, said in a statement. He called on the Obama administration to “initiate an independent inquiry into all cases” of deadly force in the last five years “so the public can understand why the nation’s largest law enforcement agency has been failing to follow best law enforcement practices in tactics, equipment, accountability and training, with dozens of tragically fatal results.”

‘Imminent danger’

In the memo, Fisher said agents were authorized to use lethal force against rock throwers if they thought that “based on the totality of the circumstances, to include the size and nature of the projectiles, that the subject of such force poses an imminent danger of death or serious injury.”

But he added that agents should “obtain a tactical advantage in these situations, such as seeking cover or distancing themselves from the immediate area of danger.”

Asked how many agents in recent years have been disciplined for exceeding use-of-force regulations, Fisher said, “I don’t have the answer to that right now.”

Nor could Fisher say how many times Border Patrol agents have sought to block a moving vehicle as a reason to fire on its occupants.

The new directive tells agents that they “should not place themselves in the path of a moving vehicle or use their body to block a vehicle’s path.”

Mexico’s Secretariat of Foreign Relations issued statements after each of two killings of Mexican migrants this year that said it was “profoundly concerned” about what it saw as a disproportionate use of force by U.S. Border Patrol agents.

In one case, a Border Patrol agent shot and killed an unarmed 31-year-old Mexican man, Gabriel Sanchez, on Jan. 16 in southeast Arizona. The agent told authorities the migrant was trying to seize his service weapon, forcing the agent to shoot.

In another case on Feb. 18, a Border Patrol agent shot and killed a migrant along a mountain trail in Otay Mesa, Calif., who he said had thrown rocks at him, one of which reportedly struck him in the face.

No witnesses have emerged to corroborate either agent’s claims.

Previous cases that have drawn attention involved Border Patrol agents who had slain teenagers who were hurling rocks while standing on Mexican soil.

In January 2011, a Border Patrol agent shot across the fence and killed 17-year-old Ramses Barron-Torres in Nogales, Mexico. In October 2012, an agent shot 16-year-old Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez repeatedly in the back while he was on a street in the same city. U.S. investigators declined to prosecute the agents involved, saying in part that they lacked jurisdiction because the victims had died on foreign soil.

Johnson weighs in

Meanwhile, the Senate confirmed White House drug czar Gil Kerlikowske on Thursday as the next commissioner for the umbrella agency over the Border Patrol, Customs and Border Protection. Kerlikowske becomes the first Senate-confirmed commissioner since 2009.

Kerlikowske reports to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, who has been in his own job less than three months.

Johnson said in a statement Friday that he was pleased that two agencies within DHS – Customs and Border Protection, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement – were releasing their use-of-force policies after years of silence.

Johnson said the new Border Patrol directive would “lessen the likelihood of deadly force situations as we meet our dual goals of ensuring the safety and security of our dedicated agents as well as the public that they serve.”

Border Patrol-Agent Dies story

4 hrs ago
AP

EL PASO, Texas – In a story Nov. 22 about a U.S. Border Patrol agent who was injured in a Nov. 18 incident being released from a hospital, The Associated Press reported erroneously that a U.S. official with knowledge of the investigation said both that agent and an agent who didn't survive the incident, Rogelio Martinez, may have fallen. The official only said Martinez may have fallen.

A corrected version of the story is below:

Border agent injured in West Texas incident out of hospital

A Border Patrol agent injured in an incident that left a fellow agent dead has been discharged from an El Paso hospital

EL PASO, Texas (AP) — A Border Patrol agent injured in an incident that left a fellow agent dead was discharged Wednesday from an El Paso hospital.

The agent was discharged Wednesday from the University Medical Center in El Paso, said Doug Mosier, spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection in El Paso. He declined to identify the agent and referred to the FBI all questions about the status of the investigation into Saturday night's incident near Van Horn that left agent Rogelio Martinez dead.

A message left with an FBI spokeswoman Wednesday wasn't returned.

Speculation about the incident has run rampant with several politicians calling it an attack and promoting the building of a wall on the border between the U.S. and Mexico.

Special Agent in Charge Emmerson Buie Jr. in the FBI's El Paso office had said Tuesday that investigators were treating the incident as a "potential assault," but they could not rule out other scenarios.

Representatives from the border patrol's union were also insistent from the accounts of other agents who responded to the scene that the incident was an attack. Chris Cabrera, a spokesman for the National Border Patrol Council, told The Associated Press that agents responding to the scene called it "grisly."

However, a U.S. official with knowledge of the investigation told The Associated Press on Monday that Martinez may have fallen, and that the surviving agent had no memory of his duty-shift. The official spoke on condition of anonymity and is not authorized to speak publicly.

Border Patrol officials hoped to have answers for Martinez's family as they planned his visitation and funeral, set for Friday and Saturday in El Paso.

His death was held up as example of the dangers faced by the Border Patrol — and cited by President Trump as another reason to build a border wall — but an autopsy report on an agent fatally injured in a west Texas culvert last fall only deepens the mystery surrounding his death.

Agent Rogelio "Roger" Martinez, 36, a four-year Border Patrol veteran, died of "blunt force trauma," according to the report, but how he received his injuries remains unclear.

Martinez suffered head injuries and broken bones Nov. 18 near Interstate 10 about 130 miles east of El Paso after responding to a triggered sensor, according to the FBI, which is still investigating.

Shortly before the incident late on a Saturday night, fellow agents said they heard Martinez radio that he had found signs of activity and was checking them out. They were summoned to the 9-foot-deep culvert after a second agent who responded suffered head injuries and had to be hospitalized.

Agent Stephen Garland, 38, has since returned home and was assisting investigators, according to FBI spokeswoman Jeanette Harper. But Garland is still recovering and has trouble remembering what happened, according to Lee Smith, a spokesman for the local Border Patrol union who met with Garland after the incident and said he declined interviews with the news media.

Trump drew national attention to the incident when it was first reported, tweeting, "Border Patrol Officer killed at Southern Border, another badly hurt. We will seek out and bring to justice those responsible. We will, and must, build the Wall!"

Officials with the Border Patrol union said the agents were ambushed by migrants. They noted that the culvert where the agents were found is frequented by smugglers who cross the border illegally about 50 miles south and trek north to the interstate with backpacks of marijuana and other drugs. Chris Cabrera, a spokesman for the local union, said the pair were likely hit with rocks.

State and federal officials offered a $70,000 reward for information in connection with the incident. The FBI widened its search to several states, erecting billboards asking for help from Texas to Southern California.

An informant familiar with human smugglers told Border Patrol officials that a pair of brothers recently smuggled across the border had admitted to assaulting the agents, according to a warrant later filed to search the brothers' car in New Mexico. FBI agents questioned the brothers, but ruled them out as suspects in the agent's death, although they were charged in federal court with alien smuggling, according to court documents.

The autopsy report, released Tuesday night, said Martinez suffered brain hemorrhaging, and fractures to the skull, eye socket, right ribs and collarbone, as well as contusion of his right shoulder, according to Dr. Janice Diaz-Cavalliery, assistant El Paso County medical examiner.

The autopsy also showed a drug in Martinez's system: butalbital, a barbiturate often found in drugs combined with aspirin, acetaminophen, caffeine or codeine. Diaz-Cavalliery noted that the drug can cause "drowsiness, sedation and ataxia," a loss of coordination.

Manner of death was listed in the report as "undetermined."

Although Trump, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and other officials have said the agents were attacked, that hasn't been confirmed by the FBI. A local sheriff, among first responders to the scene, speculated the pair may have been sideswiped by tractor trailers.

But a spokesman for the National Border Patrol Council, the union representing agents, on Wednesday insisted Martinez's death was not accidental.

"Our position has not changed. We believe Agent Martinez was attacked and murdered," union spokesman Chris Cabrera said.